We left Sylva in the rain on Saturday (July 29). Here are a few photos from the Timberidge Deck on a nicer day...

From an article in The Onion:

After five years of serving Pittsburgh as their state-of-the-art sporting facility, PNC Park, the home of the rundown, poorly maintained Pirates, said Tuesday it is threatening to leave Pittsburgh unless a new team can be built within the next three years.

"I love the city of Pittsburgh, but the Pirates are an old, dilapidated club built from other teams' spare parts, and its very foundation is rotting away," the stadium said to reporters assembled in its press box. "I had every intention to stay here for the duration of my career as a ballpark, but given that I haven't seen any realistic long-term plans for improving my resident team's ramshackle condition, I would be lying if I said I wasn't thinking about taking my services elsewhere."

Did you know that Yoda can rap?

According to various blogs (for example this one and this one), Max Lucado, Rick Atchley, and various others met with Chinese officials in Washington, D.C., in mid-July and were hoping (scheduled?) to meet with the president of China in Beijing this past Friday. The subject of these conversations was to be religious freedom in China.